Just had a thought while watching TNG.
In “Code of Honour,” the episode begins as stardate 41235.25. Then, after Natasha is captured, Picard voices that “one whole day” has gone by and the stardate is 41235.32. Does this mean one day in TNG is equal to 0.07 (stardate)? Or do the last 5 numbers have no meaning at all?
I know it’s a widely discussed issue in this community. Maybe I’m on the completely wrong track and maybe there is another consensus. But I thought it would spark conversation. Cheers!
The headings / bearings they use are all over the place too, remember looking it up and it feels like the writers just picked whatever numbers best fit the flow / cadence of dialog they were looking for
Not always. On DS9, when the Defiant was departing the station, the heading was given as 180 mark zero - meaning, traveling exactly backward from their current position. This made sense because when docked, the Defiant’s nose is buried in the docking ring.
Yeah, some shows did have their own consistent-ish systems, but I think some shows used a system that seemed to be relative to the center of the solar system, others from the perspective of the ship (which makes more sense to me, like naval bearings) - https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Heading.
It was a quick lookup from a long time ago, I was working on a 3d space game and was curious if ST had a consistent model I could just use.
